Avatar: Go to Sleep
by Nazgul1698
Summary: After the humans leave Pandora, the Omaticaya clan find that life is hard. How will Jake ensure the survival of his people in a world where they have no home? Rated T for violence. 1/23/2013: Abandoned.
1. Prologue: No Peace

(This story is probably going to be pretty violent, but I don't plan on having any sexual material or foul language, so I'm going to give it a "T" rating. This story's going to start after the movie. Please enjoy.)

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><p>Avatar: Go to Sleep<br>One: No Peace (Prologue)

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><p>The humans were gone and so the Na'vi were at peace.<p>

But things were not as easy as that. While it was true that the Omaticaya clan no longer faced an existential threat from a single, sentient force, they did risk extermination—in the cultural, social, and political sense of the word. And that was because if things carried on as they had been going for the past year, those who remained of the Omaticaya clan would be forced to leave, to disperse, to assimilate into other clans and to vanish from the pages of history.

Memories would remain of them. At least, for some time. Because even if not a single other hub of memories, of the collected consciousness of their race was ever destroyed again, memories would be lost. Memories would be forgotten. In time, memories would become legend, would become folklore, would become myth, would become fantasy, and in time, no one would believe that the Omaticaya clan or its members ever actually existed.

Home Tree had been home for the Omaticaya, and had been since their clan had existed. It was said that the first member of the Omaticaya clan had been wandering the jungle for days before falling into a strange, dreamlike state—and then waking up in the safe, protected heights of Home Tree. Since that time, he and all of his descendants had lived there, and all of his descendants knew—or thought they knew—that their descendants would live there as well.

Now Home Tree was gone. And although those responsible for its destruction had suffered a military defeat and then been expelled, there was no security and without security, there was no peace.

For some time, the Omaticaya clan had tried to live in the mountains. That didn't work—unpredictable gravitational fluctuations made it impossible to build or store anything there, and apart from that, when the ground suddenly tilted in the middle of the night, some people _would_ be lost in the dark and confusion. Generally, the oldest in the clan would be among those unfortunate enough to plunge off the unforgiving surfaces, but of late some young children and infants had lost their lives as well. Recently, two hunters struggling to save their young ones had fallen, too, and that was when Jake—the new leader of the Omaticaya clan—had decided that it was time to move.

After all, not just the past, but the future and the present of the clan was at endless risk in the Hallelujah Mountains. There had to be a better place.

But there was certainly no peace in the jungle. In the heart of the forest, predators prowled, endlessly, and those herbivorous animals that had fought the humans alongside the Na'vi now posed an almost infinite threat to the clan. Sure, a few of them could be taken down in hunts, and if some of them came upon the camp, even at night, they could be turned away.

But when _fifty_ hammerheads showed up, all hungry, all angry and on edge from being set upon by a vicious thanator, there was nothing that the Omaticaya could do but run.

And run they did, for a week on end. It took them roughly as long to assess their losses… and their losses had been grave.

Few of the clan elders remained. Mothers and children had died. Hunters had died, too, and of great personal sadness to Jake was the fact that when the clan went to the old RDA base to attempt to find at least temporary shelter, both Max and Norm were… missing. The base had not been destroyed and limited plant growth suggested that they had only been gone for a few weeks, but they were both gone and lost forever.

For ten days, the Omaticaya clan rested at the old human encampment. But that brief period of calm too came to an end when an onslaught of nomadic banshees killed off most of the clan's children that remained, and sent the survivors running again.

It was only at that point that they encountered a potentially long-term place where they could make a new life, outside of the traditional boundaries of their clan. It was a grove of trees, tall trees, though certainly none of them could have approached even half the height that Home Tree had once boasted. Still, these trees were high enough off the ground to be impervious to ground-based predation and defensible enough from the sky to offer at least sufficient protection from banshees and other winged threats.

So, at least children and the elderly could live in comfort. That was good, but there were drawbacks to the Omaticaya clan's temporary home.

One was the climate. Because in contrast to the pleasant weather enjoyed more or less year-round by Home Tree, it rained in what would come to be called Big Grove. It rained a lot, and even cursory examination of the terrain of the area made it obvious that when it began to rain it was likely to continue to rain for weeks or _months_ on end. Big Grove, after all, was located in a valley in the shadow of a sudden mountain range, right next to the coastline of a massive inlet. Clouds from the ocean were enticed to rain by the mountains, and once the process of precipitation began, it was very difficult to break.

The bottom of the valley was therefore extremely prone to flooding—sudden, violent torrents of water would plunge down from collected basins in the mountainside to flush out most of the flora and fauna that existed in the area within minutes.

It was for this reason that producing enough food to feed the clan was difficult. Hunting parties had to be sent days' travel away to hope to come back with anything of value, and gathering edible vegetation in the area was a painstaking and often unsuccessful endeavor.

Life in Big Grove, therefore, was sustainable. But only just. And everyone knew that it would only take one period of severe hardship to take away what little the clan had gained since moving to the area.

Something had to change. Something had to be done, and Jake knew it.

Still, it was only on a dark and stormy night when he managed to consolidate all of the concerns of the clan and all of the knowledge of the Na'vi race and come up with the beginnings of a plan. As dismal winds howled through the treetops and sent chilling shivers down the spines of all the Na'vi who counted themselves as part of the Omaticaya clan, he lay, awake, at the side of his woman.

By morning, he knew what to do. By afternoon, a hunting party that had been sent out to the north returned with sufficient meat to sustain life for another week. And by evening, Jake got the whole clan together and shared with them his vision of how to ensure the survival of the Omaticaya clan.

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><p>(I guess this prologue is just my way of checking for interest. Please tell me your thoughts about the introduction to this piece so that I can plan out future events as needed.)<p> 


	2. Zia

Avatar: Go to Sleep  
>Two: Zia<p>

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><p>Three meters was the normal height for a fully grown Na'vi male. Certainly there were shorter Na'vi, and taller Na'vi, too, but the standard deviation of Na'vi size was such that anyone 3.2 meters in height was considered extremely tall.<p>

And at a full 3.5 meters in height, Zia was so far from the bell curve that he might have left it behind entirely.

He was a man, at least as far as his people were concerned. He had completed the rite-of-passage of the Omaticaya clan, the Iknimaya, although his ikran had been killed in the final battle between the Na'vi and the humans. How he had survived was a mystery in itself, one that he had never shared with anyone.

It wasn't that he was unwilling to explain how he had managed to survive a thousand meter bailout and a severe gunshot wound to his shoulder. It was just that no one had seen fit to ask him. Because although he was head and shoulders taller than his peers and although he had done everything in his life that his culture required him to, he was hated, and despised no matter what.

He had been allowed to stay with his people, of course. But he knew better than to try to make his own personal shelter near anyone. Hunters might tolerate him, but their constant jibes and jokes and unfunny physical pranks made him unable to tolerate them. Elders believed he was unlucky, and his appearance made children cry, so there really wasn't anyone he could stay with for very long at all before they, too, grew to hate him.

When the Omaticaya clan had lived at Home Tree, he had had a friend. Haq was her name, and although she wasn't the prettiest girl or the smartest one, the two of them had been close from a young age.

And that was because they were both _Karami_. They were both Karami, and this unfortunate bond was what made them stick together since when they were old enough to understand what the term meant.

In many ways, Karami wasn't just a status—it was a state of being. Those who were born Karami remained Karami for the rest of their lives no matter what—no matter how brave they were, or how smart, or wise, or how many of their people's enemies they massacred, they simply could not remove the stain of Karami from their souls until the day that they were dead.

And then, perhaps, Eywa would accept them as she did the rest of her children. Perhaps the children of those who were doomed to live their lives as Karami would go on to make better lives for themselves and their posterity, but no matter what, those who lived as Karami—even if they died as normal Omaticaya—would never be remembered as anything but pestly pieces of Na'vi filth.

What other extremely negative emotions could be expected for the Na'vi to hold towards those who marked their entry into the world with murder?

Because that was what Karami meant. It was a term that was used to describe, and to curse those among the Na'vi who killed their mothers in childbirth.

It was true that everyone knew that childbirth was a dangerous thing. That was why the Tsahik of the clan was present for the creation of every new life, and Mo'at was one of the greatest interpreters of the will of Eywa that anyone could have asked for.

And she had been present of Zia's birth, for every minute of the excruciating ten hour ordeal his mother endured to bring him into the world. She had been there to hold his mother's hand, and to calm her, and to fruitlessly offer her herbal medicines and anesthetics when her screams became too agonized.

So, in the end, no one believed that it was Mo'at who had failed. It was Zia who had succeeded in putting his mother through such pain and trauma that life slipped from her before his body was removed from hers. And when at last he was removed from his mother's womb, he had been so small and pathetic and weak and motionless that Mo'at herself had believed that it was just as well that such a miserable being was born dead, for what sort of bleak existence could such a terrible creature look forward to but one of pain and struggle?

She had prepared to cast him out of Home Tree and into the jungle, as custom dictated she do to all stillborn infants. But just as she held Zia's seemingly lifeless body out and prepared to drop it into the dark, carnivorous depths below, he had fidgeted, he had moved, he had _breathed_.

She didn't believe that he would live through the night. But he did. She didn't believe he would live through the week, but he did, and a month later, he was still alive and so he was considered a person, not just a tiny body that Eywa might see fit to put a soul into.

And so he had been given to his father. He had been raised by his father, and no one could pretend that the treatment he had suffered at the hands of that rough man had been anything but extreme.

In his childhood, Zia was rarely seen without bruises. Sometimes, he was seen limping, and on several occasions he had been beaten so severely that it was only thanks to Haq that he had managed to survive injuries that would otherwise have led to permanent physical disabilities.

One summer, he had a growth spurt. Shortly after that, he had somehow upset his father again, and, again, he had been cowering under a flurry of fists and feet.

And then his father had taken out his knife. He had grabbed Zia's face and he had sworn that he would mutilate his thrice-cursed countenance as Zia had mutilated his precious mate's body so many years ago.

And then, for the first time ever, Zia had fought back.

At first, it had been passive resistance. He had thrown out a forearm, parrying his father's attempted slash. Then, he had held up his hands and parried again, and again, and again, and with each successive blow his father had gotten angrier and angrier and with each successive blow, Zia had seen more and more clearly that this was not a beating he could accept and then get up and walk away from. These were not blows he could parry and then escape from.

By this time, several of his father's peers had come to watch with grim expressions of understanding on their faces. Some of their sons and daughters had accompanied them as well, but the young ones were not Zia's peers. Zia had no peers, no friends, no group he could rely on to protect him or pick him up when he was down. He only had himself.

When he realized that, he waited for his father to come at him again. And then he had lashed out with a kick that could have broken the leg of a direhorse.

Several of his father's ribs were broken. Others were cracked or otherwise damaged, and his organs suffered contusion. The injury was severe enough to have killed him—in fact, it would have if he had been allowed to fall out of Home Tree, as he would have, had his son not grabbed his wounded body and personally carried it to Mo'at until it was cared for and rehabilitated until it was better.

Father and son had not spoken to one another since then. And for a time, the teasing, the cruel taunts and the jokes and the pranks directed at Zia had stopped.

Eventually, though, people forgot what he had done, forgot what violence his powerful body was capable of. How could they take him as a serious threat, after all, when he only ever spoke to dumb, ugly Haq, and when his appearance in itself was enough to mark him as a demon?

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><p>That was another thing about him that made him distinctive, Zia reflected, as he used his knife to carefully etch the symbol of his name into his bow. He looked different from the rest of the Na'vi, too.<p>

From his birth, he had worn odd, pale patches on his skin that Haq had said made him look like a somewhat cloudy sky on a spring day. They were on his face and his chest, mostly, but there were those strange, off-white patches on his limbs as well. One particular pale blotch on his countenance made it look as if someone had grabbed part of his skin and violently ripped it off, or that he was wearing some sort of mask.

These strange markings burned in sunlight. But apart from that, Zia had observed that they broke up his form, made him harder to see in a way that his people sometimes used earth-colored paints to emulate. True, it was natural for Na'vi to have striped markings all over their bodies, and Zia had those too—it was just that his strange pale markings overlay those jagged lines.

Maybe they were a good thing. Certainly, there were other aspects of him that were both different and better—take his knife, for example.

As Zia lifted it up and turned it over in his hand, he noted, with pride, that it bore none of the signs of wear and tear that other hunters' knives came to bear. That was because it was a custom piece, conceived of, designed, and fabricated from the ground up by his own mind and hands.

First, he had taken the toughest piece of volcanic rock he could find and smoothed and sharpened it until it could cut through the side of a leaf. Then, he had broken it in half and then he had sharpened the stub that remained until he was left with a broad, short blade that was not of particular use for the artistic slicing maneuvers his people used in combat—but would not yield and _would_ not break and could stab through the armored hide of a hammerhead.

It was a good weapon—it was a different weapon, and so it suited him. It suited his hands, too, because they, too, were different. He had five fingers, like humans, not four, like most other Na'vi. Five-fingered Na'vi weren't unheard of; in fact, in some clans they weren't even rare. And Zia had found that he could grip things better than other Na'vi, and that the precise motor abilities he was capable far outstripped those of anyone but Jake.

Years ago, Zia had dreamed that he was a human. He had been among those who saw the ships come down, and he had been one of those assigned to look over the situation from the shadows with an arrow prepared when the leaders of the Omaticaya people went to greet their extraterrestrial guests. He had also been among those who watched the humans commit formerly unthinkable violations of the environment, crimes against Eywa, and he had participated in several patrols to counter increasingly bold human advances until things really did come to open combat.

And, of course, he had been in Home Tree when the humans had brought it to the ground. He had tried to save Haq—his lovely, beautiful, wonderful Haq—but he had failed. In the end, she was just another soul lost to the blasphemous humans, and he was just another one of those who had survived.

He had avenged Haq in the final battle. He had brought down five Scorpions before he had been shot down. And then he had…

He shook his head. He had promised himself not to think of what he had done next until someone either asked him or he felt that he was mature enough and calm enough—he wouldn't think about the ramifications of what he had done next until he had gotten over the fact that the humans had killed Haq.

Until then, he would continue to be as he was—just another lone, lean figure sitting in the wet and the cold, endlessly perfecting his weapons until they were deadlier than he was.

Maybe he would die before he found himself ready to truly think about what had happened after his ikran had been killed, he thought dully. It was certainly possible; no matter where Jake took the clan there was no safety.

Oh, well. At least if he died, then things wouldn't become complicated.

"Hey. Zia."

Immediately, he looked up. Reflexively, he half-raised his hands so that whatever blows rained down on him would have to break through them first—but then he relaxed and told himself that the habits he'd learned living with his father would have to die out sooner rather than later.

It was Tork.

He was another young hunter, like Zia, and one for whom Zia had always held a certain amount of respect. Although Tork was popular and had at least five women that Zia knew lusting after him, he didn't let it get to his head. He was wise, particularly so for someone so young, and the sort of person who had the rare gift of being able to dispassionately judge capabilities and weaknesses, even in himself. Zia had been on many hunting trips with Tork, and although it was rare that Tork ever said a word to stop his peers from bullying Zia, it meant a lot that he had never personally done anything to harass or intimidate the taller Na'vi.

At least, not really. At least, not recently. Sure, Tork had thrown twigs and stones when they had both been younger, but that was just how kids were. Ever since Tork had become a man, he had never aimed a harsh word or gesture in Zia's direction.

For that reason, Zia immediately rose to his feet and stopped what he was doing.

"Calm down, calm down," Tork said in a friendly sort of way. "I just wanted to tell you that Jake has called for all of us to gather at the center of Big Grove after the evening meal. More or less everyone knows already, but I thought I might tell you…"

At first, Zia didn't respond. Not verbally, anyway, for it was not his custom to be a man of many words. He simply nodded—favored Tork with a smile—and then sat back down and got back to his knife.

"I'll be there," Zia said after a moment. "Thank you, Tork."

"Don't worry about it, Zia," the shorter Na'vi said. He moved as it to place a friendly hand on Zia's shoulder, but seemed to think better of it.

"Say… Me, Kyr, Dhani, and a few ladies are going to eat together this evening; do you think you'd like to join us?"

Zia stopped what he was doing. He looked up and into Tork's eyes and he did not understand, because no one had ever extended such an invitation to him.

His eyes must have made clear the question that he did not ask, because Tork smiled and answered it.

"We've lost so much of the Omaticaya clan recently. Those of us who are still alive… we should learn to treat one another better. Don't worry—I've already spoken to Kyr about this, and Dhani's not the kind of guy to give you a hard time for being Karami. And there are going to be a few girls over—I'm sure one of them, or maybe two, might want to talk to you."

For a moment, Zia was tempted to accept Tork's invitation, he really was. But then he thought of what it would be like to sit among them like he was one of them… with Kyr, Tork's younger brother, and with Dhani, one of the most proficient archers in their generation. And then he thought of the females… the smaller, leaner beings who giggled when those who held their affections came up with a particularly clever insult to hurl at Zia, who laughed out loud and applauded when they managed to trip him or shove him down into the mud, who reacted with terror as if he was the one in the wrong when he tolerated the shoves and the slaps no more and fought back.

And then he thought of Haq.

He looked away.

The part of Big Grove that he'd made his home in was at the very edge of the clan's encampment, at the coldest and least defended part, where rain and predators alike would reach before the heart of the clan was threatened. It was a dangerous, miserable, lonely place, but Zia liked it. Anywhere else in Big Grove, he would be unable to look around and see anything besides his people.

Here, if he looked to the side, he could see the valley and the mountains, and the atmospheric phenomenon that always occurred when clouds struck the snow-capped peaks. He could hear the distant cries of banshees or other, less definable animals, and he could even look down and see the chilling fog that collected above the forest depths.

Already clouds were rolling in. Already, the massive collective bodies of water droplets were churning over the mountain peaks, and Zia knew that when rain came that night, it would strike with all the force of a lightning bolt.

In fact, there probably would be lightning. And anyone who made their homes in the very tallest trees in Big Grove would be in danger of electrocution and fire.

Zia looked up. The tree whose branches he used to make his own shelter was short.

Zia looked at Tork.

"Maybe you and your friends should join me here, instead."

Tork's smile faded. He shook his head and he walked away.

"You can't say that I didn't ask, Zia. I was just trying to be nice."

Zia looked after Tork and he did not understand. After all, he had not been socialized to the degree that was needed to have understood what had just happened. Neither his father's curses, nor his blows, nor Haq's caresses or sweet words were enough to let him understand how normal people functioned.

Zia placed his knife back at its sheath. Now, it was ready to be drawn from his thigh, not the traditional holster behind his back that most in the Omaticaya clan favored. He looked after Tork for a moment and then he took out his personal stores of meat and edible vegetation and bit into some article of food without the slightest trace of satisfaction.

"You can't say that I didn't ask, Tork. I was just trying to be nice."

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><p>(I will probably start the next chapter in a couple of days… I hope everyone likes things so far.)<p> 


	3. Incipt

Avatar: Go to Sleep  
>Three: Incipit<p>

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><p>Everyone had eaten that evening.<p>

Jake knew this, because although there were few celebrations in the year when the whole clan would get together to feast, everyone had dinner roughly at the same time, just when Pandora's sun passed beyond the horizon. It was nice, in a quaint sort of way, that everyone obeyed traditional momentum so willingly.

Apart from that, there were few logistics to be worried about if there was to be a clan gathering. Such a gathering could be had at any time, at an hour's notice.

Neytiri was at his side. Some yards behind him were Mo'at and other Omaticaya elders; immediately before him were the clan's greatest warriors, behind them sat the majority of the clan and at the ends of the crowd, at the very fringes, were the outcasts.

Thinking about them even now made Jake uncomfortable. After he had been injured—as a human—he had felt the pain of social ostracization for weeks before skill and dedication allowed him to overcome it. But it seemed that there was little to nothing an outcast of the Omaticaya clan could do to better their lots.

Neytiri had told him not to question it. It was how things had been in the clan for a thousand years; apart from that, it was the will of Eywa that those who were different be treated as such. There was no reason to hate the outcasts—Karamis, for example—but there was no particular reason to love them or to take pity on them, either.

Jake had tried to believe her, he really had. But even then, he couldn't help but briefly glancing into the eyes of the fair-skinned giant whose name he'd never heard and feeling that something about how the clan treated him was terribly, horribly wrong.

Well. Maybe he could do his part to fix that that night itself.

It was a somewhat eerie, chilling night already, though the dying rays of the setting sun's light still provided a purple sort of ambience in the treetops. Although there wasn't more precipitation than a light drizzle that fell sideways owing to a semiconsistent wind that ran through the valley, that was enough to drop the temperature of the environment Jake and the rest of the clan perceived to the point that it was hard not to shiver. Apart from that, although lightning had struck Big Grove several times just under an hour before, the weather was relatively calm, now, so that perhaps the Na'vi would be able to forget that they'd lost one of their young females to electrocution. Maybe her family and friends could forget their tears, and the fact that electrocution had mangled her features so badly that even those who had been forced to watch her undergo the energy overload believed that there had been an explosion, of some sort, and that she had vanished and then been replaced with a charred bit of flesh that only looked vaguely like a Na'vi.

And Jake didn't want to shiver. He had to show his best face now, when he told the clan how he planned to make a future for them all. So, he looked directly at the beings that had come to be his tribe, his people, ignoring the defiant blade the rain cast against his countenance, and he began to speak. By this time, he had practiced enough to forgo English for the native language of the Na'vi race.

"My brothers and sisters," he addressed them, "the past few months have been hard for us all. We have lost many people, and we have not been able to find long-term shelter until now. Even now, we all know that we can only scratch out a life at Big Grove…"

He paused. Maybe it was for effect, or maybe it was because he had just put into words what was on the minds of so many in the Omaticaya clan, but had never been consciously acknowledged by many of them.

"But I have a plan.

"We still have many hunters left. We still have our greatest warriors left, and we still have some children left. We have mothers—present and prospective in our rank—and that's why we can no longer gamble on the hope that the next place might be better than the last and move as a group. Now that we've found a temporary home that's relatively safe, it's time to circle the wagons and do what we can to sustain life.

"On the other hand… we have a lot of hunger in this clan. Among our young ones—I know that you all can see it; we were all there at some point… before we got married and dedicated ourselves to our mates and our children…" he glanced meaningfully at Neytiri, and for a moment some in the clan believed that his eyes flickered down from hers to her lean belly.

"We're in a dangerous position, I won't deny it," Jake said. "But we also have a rare opportunity. We can maintain life, and at the same time, we can find out how to offer the Omaticaya clan a greater, stronger, better life in a new, permanent home.

"With your approval, I'll send out small groups of young hunters—five to ten strong each—in all directions. They will search for suitable homes for our clan, over the course of two months… and then they will return and discuss our findings.

"And then all of us will decide where to go.

"This plan is risky," Jake admitted. "Ten hunters form a formidable force… but not an indomitable one. They will suffer losses abroad… as will we at home. Sending out so many of our talented hands will put great pressure on those of us who remain… but I have confidence that if we work hard, we won't have to starve. After all, this world is plentiful, and Eywa always provides for her children, as she has since before the beginning of time."

He looked out at the Na'vi who had become his acquaintances, comrades-in-arms, friends, and family. Uncertain faces looked back at him, framed by the damp darkness of the treetops that had become their temporary home.

Even Neytiri seemed unsure about the plan he had proposed. It was a lot riskier than he had made it seem, after all, because for all of his rhetoric that Eywa cared for her children… there were simply no guarantees that things were better elsewhere. And sending out the young, strong hunters into unknown lands—supposing that more than just a few of them died? The clan would have a hard time recovering from a hit like that. As it was, they were already living on a skeleton crew, so to speak, after the final battle with the human invaders had decimated their ranks.

But did they really have any viable alternatives?

As it was, life was wearing the Omaticaya clan down. True, they could sustain themselves in Big Grove, but not for very long, and certainly they couldn't live the lives they wished to live. Merely obtaining enough food and other resources to sustain life was such an exhausting and time-consuming set of activities that there was no time for art, for relaxation, for the enjoyment of the company of one's beloved family members.

For a moment, it seemed that no one would stand with Jake. And then, in the darkness, a lone figure solemnly rose.

Jake recognized him immediately: Tork. He was one of the young hunters Jake had intended to send out, but Jake could see that his heart was set neither on adventure nor glory. He seemed to have recognized what was hard, but what was necessary to do to protect the clan, perhaps because he had experienced the grim alternative in perhaps the most gory ways possible. He had been among those, after all, to watch an innocent, harmless young female get fried so severely that she resembled an overtanned bit of leather more than a person.

As had Kyr, his younger brother, one who had just completed his Iknimaya. As had Dhani, one of the very best marksmen in the clan .

For a moment, none others stood. And then, at the very back of the gathered Na'vi, a frighteningly tall figure with patched skin stood too.

It took everyone a few seconds to realize that Zia had stood, signaling his support of Jake's clan. And everyone knew that as a young man, he would be sent out on what would doubtlessly be a very dangerous journey indeed.

He was Karami. Yet even he knew his duty to the clan.

When the Omaticaya people began to realize this, more of them began to stand. First, it was just the warriors and the hunters, but soon, the elders and the mothers and the fathers began to stand too. Within moments, every single Na'vi in the clan was on his or her feet, calling out his or her support of what was the best, the greatest, the _only_ viable plan to save their people that anyone could think of.

Even Mo'at seemed excited by the idea, by the possibility that someday soon her people might not just have to scrape a life off the stones. Perhaps times of plenty would come again, and soon, so that she might deliver and see and touch her grandchildren before she had to give back the life-force Eywa had invested in her.

Jake looked to Neytiri. She had placed a four-fingered hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. The expression on her face was happy and supportive and held no signs of the quiet, nagging voice in the back of her head that told her to stop, to think, to tell her mate that something about his plan just seemed _wrong_ to her.

The decision had been made. All that was left was to execute it.

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><p>Jake had intended to give everyone a few days to prepare for the departure of the young hunters, but once his tired, weary, and increasingly depressed people had a shred of real hope to cling to, their energy and their desire to <em>do <em>was limitless.

That was why, not an hour after he had approached the clan, there was a major ritual. It wasn't a party, it was a ritual, but in hard times like these, there was no difference between a party and a ritual.

Fires had been started in the trees, and no one worried very much about the safety hazards of such activities. Big Grove, after all, was oversaturated with water; in fact, it had been a challenge to find enough dry firewood to sustain an inferno for more than a few minutes.

But the combined efforts of the Omaticaya Na'vi had not been fruitless, not this time. This time, their efforts had been rewarded with several fires.

Most of them were small and generated enough heat to warm a dozen or two gathered Na'vi. But the largest fire, in the center of Big Grove, just next to where Jake made his home, was huge and hot enough that anyone who got to within ten feet of the blaze risked severe burns.

Smoke twisted into the sky to dance in patterns twisted and forbidden with the long, multicolored tongues of flame that followed them. Sometimes, when Mo'at threw particular mixes of ceremonial herbs or spices into the fire, sudden torrents of fire would shoot out, would shoot up, would reach out in all directions at the gathered Na'vi until she calmed the fire down until it was a normal inferno again.

Around the fires, the Na'vi danced. The paths and motions they executed were so perfect; they were literally part of their bones. Their ancestors had danced in such manners since a thousand generations before they were born, and Eywa herself had etched the genetic memory of how to dance to her glory into the very cores of her children.

Men beat drums. Women sang and played flutes carved from the branches of Home Tree herself, and these were the reasons that the magic created that night was powerful. Each of the Na'vi gathered could feel it pulsing in his or her veins… except for Zia.

True, he had gathered his spear, his knife, and his bow, and carried these in the traditional manner that an Omaticaya man was expected to. He sang, too, and danced in the same manner that the rest of his people did, but this did not change the fact that he felt nothing, nothing at all, nothing that he could possibly call the life-force that was called Eywa within his soul.

He never had, either. From when he had been a small boy, he always remembered participating in the rituals of his people and feeling none of what they said that they felt. He had always tried, hard, thinking that he was doing something wrong, but nothing ever came of the extra spiritual study lessons he took with Mo'at or any of the more religious parents in his clan who tolerated him enough. He simply could not feel the strange, extraphysical force that his people said acted on them when they truly reached within the cores of their beings to understand their places in the universe.

So, several years ago, he had concluded that he wasn't doing anything wrong. He _was_ wrong. He was not a child of Eywa, he realized, and that was why he never felt her presence in anything, let alone himself.

He hadn't dared to speak to anyone about this. If Mo'at found out about it, she'd attempt to exorcise whatever demon possessed him to say such a thing, and if he survived that procedure, then the Tsahik would banish him from the clan's territory forever.

And he wouldn't survive on his own for very long. His father would make sure of that.

So he kept the truth to himself, and he continued to dance when he was told to, and kneel when he was told to, and chant when he was told to. And, in time, he had come to question what he'd concluded so many years ago, when the endless beating and tormenting inflicted upon him by those around him took their toll on his psyche.

He didn't doubt that Eywa existed. Not anymore, anyway, after she had sent torrents of the fauna that lived in his homeland to confront the human invaders. He simply doubted that his peoples' understanding of her was correct.

After all, how petty and jealous of a deity she was, if she demanded that her children waste good firewood and medicinal herbs to fire, just to please her. And Zia doubted that Eywa, the mother of all life, was petty and jealous. So, he had come to doubt the validity of the rituals his people practiced.

After all, he had never seen any good come out of them. Hunts that were preceded by prayers did neither better nor worse than hunts that were not, and the current situation of the Omaticaya clan was great evidence against the validity of the prayers they did—everyone prayed, these days, and nothing seemed to have come of it.

Or maybe Eywa was just punishing all the clan because of his blasphemous thought. He didn't know.

Still, he couldn't help but feel that the entire ritual that was being performed was nothing more than an exercise in frivolity. Could anything else, he wondered, convince grown men and women to act as they were—utterly uninhibited and wild, as if they were nothing more than animals?

Certainly Zia believed that positive things could come out of rituals. Certainly, a ritual could be used to express with crystal clarity how important a hunt, or, in this case, a group of journeys were, and that could then push people to taking things seriously and giving weapons, food, clothing, and medicine as necessary to ensure the success of a given venture.

But surely a ritual done for these practical purposes would be different in nature than the dancing and singing and beating of drums that his people seemed to be obsessed with.

Perhaps someday a Tsahik of the Omaticaya clan would reform their rituals. But that Tsahik was not Jake.

Zia could see him with Neytiri right now. There was no doubt that he was far too distracted to worry about the validity of the actions he'd forced the whole clan to take part in.

Zia shook his head and turned away. He was not disgusted; sex was as much a part of life as eating and breathing. But surely it was best kept private rather than out in the open for everyone to see and watch.

The ritual was hitting a climax, now, and so the dancing and the singing and the beating of drums hit a fever pitch. Zia played along, of course, but his soul was as empty and cold as ever, even when everyone stopped, all at once, in the perfect unison that only a united people, a united clan, a united spirit could achieve. If it hadn't been for the threatening roar of the fires, it would have been perfectly silent as Mo'at called for those who would go forth from Big Grove to find a new home for the clan.

Zia stepped forward. Perchance, Tork was next to him, and nearby were Dhani, Kyr, and Zam, a short Na'vi who could pick Zia off his feet and throw him halfway across Big Grove. They all stood, tall, proud and strong, and watched as Mo'at carried a dark bowl in her hands and approached each of the young men of the Omaticaya clan in turn.

She was using some sort of paint to mark their chests with the symbol of the clan, their name, and some sort of good luck charm. It was a process that took no more than twenty seconds per person; so, it was only a few minutes before it was Zia's turn.

Mo'at approached him and looked into his eyes. He looked down into hers and only flinched a little bit when she placed her hand on him. It was true that Mo'at had never treated him particularly cruelly; on the other hand, she hadn't exactly treated him well, either, so there was no reason for the general distrust Zia felt for others to evaporate before her.

As she began to paint the symbol of his name onto his left pectoral, Zia simply looked past her, into the fire around which the whole clan was gathered. The journey that approached him… it intimidated him. In a way, he was even afraid of it.

But that didn't stop him from welcoming the challenge of surviving out in the wilderness with only a few other fellows for a full month. This would be nothing like anything anyone had ever done before—they were going outside of the part of their homeworld known to their people, and they weren't just passing through unfamiliar areas. They were going to stay there for a month, and _if_ they could survive, they were going to have to come back home.

A slight smile lightened Zia's features. And then he realized that Mo'at was still in front of him and still trying to paint his chest.

It was no good, though. Although Zia's skin accepted her paint as well as anyone's where it was normal, the pale patches that had deformed him since birth repelled her pigment so that it balled up into drops and uselessly rolled away. Mo'at tried to keep writing for a few more seconds, but she just gave up and made her way to Dhani.

Zia couldn't see what his chest looked like, but he could guess that the washed-out, ruined appearance that the runny paint gave his torso was… intimidating, to say the least. That would certainly explain the unfriendly stares directed at him—they weren't transient and fleeting as they normally were. The more superstitious members of the clan, and those who sought their favor, glared at him with greater vehemence than they had shone Jake when he had entered home tree.

Zia met none of their eyes. He heard none of their whispers. Instead, he simply retreated what was, for him, the only place in the universe where he had a modicum of sanctity, and that was inside the lonely chambers of his mind. He left his body to stand, numbly, and simply accept the distaste and hatred that his people treated him with.

In time, they stopped staring and whispering. And, in time, Mo'at finished painting the chests of every young man in the Omaticaya clan.

It was time to break off into groups and get going.

And already, Zia saw a problem.

Jake was not a micro-manager, and for that reason, he was allowing groups of young men to form organically, so to speak, without his direction. In most cases, this simply meant that groups of friends gathered together; sometimes, those with particular talents were bartered and exchanged in order to create relative equality among the small bands of young males in terms of overall power, speed, strength, effectivity in combat, and other skills.

So, where would Zia go? What group would possibly accept him, a Karami, whose chest didn't bare the markings Mo'at had painted on the rest of them?

Maybe this would be the night the clan finally had the excuse to excise him from their ranks. Perhaps Jake would "suggest" that he go by himself to some particularly dangerous location, and Zia knew that even if he did manage to survive for a month, all on his own in an unfamiliar land, he would not be welcome back home even if he did manage to come back.

Maybe he should just slit his throat right then. It would save everyone a lot of trouble, after all, and—

There was a hand on his forearm. His fingers brushed against the handle of his knife, but if he tried to grasp it, that hand could and would stop him from getting further than that.

It was Tork. The shorter Na'vi was looking up at him with an expression in his eyes that Zia did not understand, and for a minute, Zia just looked back.

"You're wasting time, Zia," Tork said. "We're all waiting for you."

It was then that Tork released Zia's arm and walked back to a group of ten young men… there were Dhani, Kyr, and Zam, but there was also Ra, one of the most respected trackers in their generation. There were Das, Imer, Tros, and Kim, all of whom had no particularly outstanding talents, but each of whom was a well-rounded young Na'vi man who would be a vital asset to any small expeditionary group. And with Tork as their leader, they would be fast, agile, adaptive, and as potentially dangerous as twenty less-coordinated Na'vi.

Zia hesitated. He looked into the eyes of each of the young men, all of whom he'd grown up with, and none of whom he particularly liked. He was friends with none of them, and although Tork and Kyr treated him decently from time to time, the rest of them were hesitant to acknowledge his presence under normal circumstances.

But what was his alternative? He could dishonor Tork and go off alone on a suicide journey, or he could commit suicide immediately. Neither of these options were particularly attractive, and apart from that…

Zia's eyes tightened. It was a subtle gesture, one that only Haq might have noticed—but now, she was dead, and so no one noticed the emotion that flickered across Zia's face. If he went on this voyage with Tork and the others, then he might be able to test out what he'd been so hesitant to test over the past months…

Zia blinked. Then, he stepped forward, nodded to Tork, and took his place among the other members of the group as if he was one of them. He ignored that the dynamic of the group changed immediately, and he also ignored the concerned murmuring that seemed to race through the gathered Omaticaya clan like an electrical current. He just held his spear and his bow close and waited for those he would be traveling with to say goodbye to their loved ones.

Zia had no loved ones. His father was presumably somewhere in the crowd of Na'vi gathered around the fire, but the last thing on Zia's mind, the last thing Zia needed to see was that hateful face glaring at him through the flames.

So, he went to his own personal shelter and spent a few minutes gathering what few supplies he had, and then he assembled with Tork and his companions among the rest of the young men who were leaving Big Grove. They left minutes later, in double-file lines, and it was fortunate that Zia was the rear guard. That way, he didn't hear Zam mutter not quite under his breath that owing to Zia's presence and lack of sanctification by Mo'at, their journey was a cursed journey.

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><p>(And now we have arrived at the first major story arc. I am still interested in continuing this piece, but it looks like there's almost no interest in it at all… so if you want me to keep writing, please show your support for this story by posting a review and getting me some hits.)<p> 


	4. The Cursed Journey I

Avatar: Go to Sleep

Four: The Cursed Journey I

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><p>Tork was at the vanguard of the group; immediately behind him were Zam and Das. Behind these two members were Dhani and Ra, and behind them were Tros and Kyr. Pulling up the rear of the double-line formation were Imer and Kim, and at the very back of the group was Zia.<p>

It was truly an excellent way to organize the hunters. Tork, of course, had to be at the front, because he was the leader of the group—he had to be the one to react to whatever obstacles or issues came before them and to do that he had to be the first to see or touch or hear taste whatever foes their homeland threw at them.

If things became dangerous quickly, then Zam, the strongest member of the Omaticaya clan, pound for pound, could instantly confront virtually any predator with the aggression and brutality needed to allow the rest of the clan to prepare to fight. Das would protect his flanks, and from behind him, Dhani would unleash a deadly torrent of poisoned arrows that could make short work of any animal that walked, flew, or swam the surface of the planet.

Tros and Kyr would fan out and lock down the group from attacks from the side. And Zia, Imer and Kim would ensure that nothing coming directly from the rear would take the group off-guard.

It was for this reason that the morale of the group was good, at least relatively speaking. Sure, everyone knew that Zia was Karami and doubtlessly mildly unlucky due to his lack of sanctification by Mo'at, but there could be no denying that he was quite a powerful and skillful hunter and warrior. Tros and Tork had fought close together during the final battle with the human invades, and they had seen Zia massacre their enemies with a cold purpose that made several Scorpion fliers focus on attacking him until he was shot down.

So, though they were forced to travel on a forest floor that was unfamiliar and foreboding to them, they felt no terror and only enough fear to sharpen their instincts. With their spears or bows in their hands, they kept their heads on swivels and listened closely to the eerie hymns whispered by nocturnal creatures for the shadowed warnings that might advise them of oncoming danger.

But it seemed that Eywa was with them. Nothing came to bother them through the several hours that they marched that night.

It was almost midnight when Tork held up his fist. By that point, they had made their way some miles away from Big Grove; the collection of tall trees that had been home for some time was visible through forest cover, but only just. Soon, it would vanish into the misted distance, and the group would have to rely on whatever emotions they could synthesize on their own to keep their spirits up.

For now, though, home was still in sight. And not a single member of the group could keep himself from looking back at it, not even Zia.

For a moment, a severe nostalgia threatened to overwhelm collective morale. But then Tork wrapped an arm around his brother's shoulders and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear him.

"Just think, Kyr," Tork said. "In a month, we'll be back here… healthy, relaxed, with gifts from the new land, and tales to tell our people of how wonderful it is. We'll have stories, too—to impress girls and to win the respect and pride of our parents and elders. Won't we, boys?"

The last question was, of course, addressed to the group at large, and the group at large answered with a somewhat tired but upbeat affirmative.

Zia, on the other hand, was silent. It was his nature to be silent, and apart from that, he worked best in silence. So it was in silence that he spent a few moments looking around and walking around, staying close enough to the others that they could protect him if something bad happened, yet not straying too close that they might be enticed to throw things at him.

He familiarized himself with their immediate surroundings; that was all he needed to do. As a man of the Omaticaya clan, he was familiarized with the general habitat by his very nature, and he knew what sounds and sights and smells belonged and what didn't. He was simply looking to ensure that there were no security concerns that had been overlooked.

It seemed that there weren't. Tork had stopped them in a good position—a defendable one—and the trees nearby would be easy to adapt to temporary sleeping places. For at least one night, it would be easy to live in such a place… and so, somewhat satisfied, Zia set down his weapons and supplies at the geographical center of the small group of trees and proceeded to start a fire.

Around him, the rest of the group saw what he was doing and reacted. Some began to gather firewood, others attached miniscule bells to long, slender bits of string. These were tied at various locations around the "camp" and would serve to warn the group of any silent predators that approached them from the ground.

In ten minutes, the group was circled around a small but warm blaze. Each man had a spear or bow in his arms and was chewing on the pieces of preserved meat that had been rationed and passed around. Two men were on guard duty—Zia and Zam—and these two members stood away from the circle and faced out, scanning the ground and the treetops alike for threats.

At present, the climate was nice, albeit a bit on the chilly side for the habitually bare-chested Na'vi. On colder, rainier days in Big Grove, women and children and sometimes men too would have to don thick, protective cloaks made of cured animal skin, and it looked like where Zia's group was going would get colder still than that. They might have to wear more than just cloaks and their traditional loincloths—they might have to develop the uni-legged "skirts" that Na'vi of different habitats wore through the colder seasons, when rain froze into sleet or snow.

They'd have to go hunting, Zia reflected, and soon. Their rations could last for several weeks, if they really stretched them, but the whole point of staying in a strange land for a month was to make sure that it was suitable for long-term habitation. They had to ensure that hunting there was good. Of course, ten men was hardly a decent hunting party, but such a group could certainly bring down at least one of the many animals his people hunted—and a single big kill would give them enough fresh meat to sustain themselves for several weeks.

Now that Zia thought of it, it would be nice, at least, to not have to worry about the concerns of the women, the children, and the elderly—they were all well-protected back at Big Grove. Now, he and his comrades-in-arms only had to worry about their own safety and wellbeing.

Apart from that, they could move a lot faster. They wouldn't have to worry about the logistics about travelling with a large group, for one thing, and they wouldn't have any too old or too young bones to slow them down. In fact, now that Zia thought of it, in the time since they'd left to the present, they'd covered more ground than a larger group with women and children could in half a day.

How satisfying.

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><p>They kept watch in turns. And then, they were up before dawn.<p>

It wasn't a great deal of sleep, but it was enough to provide the necessary amount of rest that a man of the Omaticaya clan needed to get up and function at 100% of his natural ability. So, they broke fast and then they broke camp; each task took no more than five minutes—and then, of course, they were off again.

Torka led the group in relative silence, though now and then little conversations would spark up between its members. Less frequently, Torka or someone else would call out a halt and pause, for a moment, to ensure that they weren't being stalked or led into a dangerous route.

Still, nothing happened. And by noon, the group was almost an eighth of the way to their destination.

The pace they set was fast but not so fast that anyone was tired. If anything, the brisk walk was refreshing—it had been rare, in the past months, for the young men of the clan to have a good chance to stretch their muscles. Only a blur of extreme boredom mixed with depression was punctuated by mind-numbing terror and sorrow when the bodies were set to rest and the losses were counted.

But now, everything was new, interesting, exciting. Sometimes, Tork would increase the pace to a slow jog for some minutes on end, and so by the time it was noon they were nearly a quarter of the way to their destination.

Tradition and wisdom dictated that they stop and rest briefly for at least half an hour. So, the traveling Na'vi made their way into a nearby tree and sat, chatting occasionally and enjoying the surprisingly pleasant weather. It wasn't exactly sunny, but the climate was warm overall and there wasn't much wind. Tork seemed relaxed and in a good mood, but Zia could see that Dhani was, for some reason, a bit worried. He was sitting by himself on a branch far from the tree's trunk and facing outward, holding his bow in such a way that if needed, he could launch any one of his deadly arrows from it within a second or two.

Zia looked at the archer for a few moments. He then stood up and made his way to within ten yards of the other Na'vi male, who noticed him coming but didn't tell him to stay away.

Still, it was a few seconds before Zia spoke.

"You seem worried, Dhani," the tall male said. "What's wrong?"

Dhani looked at Zia for a moment. It seemed that he would say "get lost, Karami" or something like it, but Dhani hadn't been particularly uncivil to Zia in the past several years. Then again, there were no personal issues between them… so there was no reason to be impolite to the other man.

"I'm not sure," Dhani said after a minute. He wasn't facing Zia, exactly, but he wasn't coldly looking away from him either. He was still looking out into the forest, as if there was something out there that he could see and yet could not see.

After a moment, he fidgeted where he sat uncomfortably and held his bow a bit closer to a position from which it could be fired.

"I think there's something out there," he said after another moment, and by then, Zia had taken a seat next to him. His own bow was rested across his knees and even then Zia was slowly drawing an arrow from its quiver.

For a few minutes, it seemed that Dhani was wrong. Nothing happened and the rest of the group continued to chat and relax—and then all Hell broke loose.

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><p>(I will post the next chapter within a few weeks or so. Please review.)<p> 


	5. The Cursed Journey II

Avatar: Go to Sleep

Five: The Cursed Journey II

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><p>(I must request a significant suspension in disbelief from my readers in this chapter. I am going to use fauna that is somewhat out of place in the colorful, wonderful world that is Mr. Cameron's conception of Pandora.)<p>

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><p>Zia was accustomed to fighting in complete isolation and solitude. When it was just him, his prey or his enemy, and the surroundings, the universe was simple and orderly, and his goals were straightforward.<p>

Survive. Kill. And then drink the blood of the dead opponent while it was still hot.

Certainly, things could be complicated by a number of factors. If he was malnourished or injured, Zia's considerable physical abilities would be dampened, but it was in these situations that the most brutal of Zia's weapons was sharpened to a deadly, razor-like edge. When he was really challenged, Zia didn't particularly need to have eaten in the past day or even the past week, and it didn't matter if he was bruised or suffering from poison or illness—when he was really pushed to the furthest extremes, he was able to access a remnant of the inexorable will to survive that had seen him through his first night alive, instead of cast out into the wilderness to be food for whatever scavenger came across his broken body first.

It was this volatile aggression that allowed Zia to be the greatest unsung warrior in the final battle with the Sky People, when he had single-handedly taken down five of their fliers and harassed the machinegun nests on top of their larger aircrafts with such efficiency that he was purposefully pursued and brought down. When Zia was in combat, there was him, there was the enemy, and everything else was a surrounding to be used and ignored as necessary.

Rare were the occasions on which Zia fought in a group. This was why when the massive, blackened spider came crashing through the jungle to dive at him and Dhani, Zia defied all logic and common sense and took a second to think.

For a moment, all was silent. The thunderous roar of trees being uprooted and broken by the house-sized behemoth that raced from the wilderness towards him existed only on the periphery of his awareness; the shouts of the other Na'vi didn't even register. Zia took note of everything—where he was, the particular configuration of the branches surrounding him, where everyone else was, and how long it would take for them to organize a good defense.

And then he took note of his enemy.

It was huge—a monster—with multiple sets of gleaming eyes that reminded him, vaguely, of honeycombs. Torrents of tree trunk thick hairy legs rushed past one another in the beast's vicious race towards him and the rest of the Na'vi, and at the joints of these fiendish limbs, Zia could see thick, semi-transparent armor made of chitin.

The arachnid's face was twisted with evil, a malicious desire to hurt, to kill and to destroy, hunger, and with the cold, calculating intelligence that sometimes showed itself in Zia's own marred countenance when he considered whether or not it would be justified to lash out with violence against those who mistreated him.

Twin fangs the size of Zia's forearms dripped venom onto the forest floor. They then split apart as the spider opened its mouth in a hateful challenge, and this was when Zia finally released the arrow he'd pulled back the moment the creature entered his perception.

Dhani had already fired his arrow—the projectile had buried itself in one of the spider's many shoulders—and jumped clear of the tree. Now, it was time for Zia to do the same.

But instead of taking to the ground, as Dhani had, Zia calmly took two long steps and then launched himself into the air. For a moment, it seemed that he would plunge to the ground and put himself out of the fight or perhaps life itself, but he managed to leap into a nearby tree's canopy just before the spider smashed through the foliage that had once been the Na'vi resting ground.

Zia turned, quickly, and loaded another arrow into his bow. His gaze fixed on his enemy, but beneath him his comrades were mounting a thus-far unsuccessful counter attack. Tork had shouted for them to aim for the spider's eyes, and indeed within a few seconds several poisoned projectiles flew through the air and buried themselves in their intended targets.

The spider drew back and that and lifted two massive legs to shield itself. Before it did, Zia saw that at least two of the behemoth's massive eyes had gone dark and were already being poisoned by the dangerous sap smeared on all Omaticaya arrow tips.

Then, there was an oppressive, deafening scream. Zia nearly fell down; he caught a nearby branch just in time to steady himself, but that his ears were ringing loudly was evidence of only half of the spider's fierce counterattack. When Zia was on his feet again, he realized that his skin was stinging, bubbling, breaking, boiling.

Acid had been spat onto the Na'vi. When Zia and the rest of them used their hands to try to brush it away, their hands burned too, and it looked like Dhani had taken a severe hit to his eyes. He was down, shrieking in agony and viciously wiping at his own face, but no one was there to help him—they were too busy dealing with their own pain.

But not Zia. Not to the same degree, anyway. Because although his people burned wherever the acid touched them, Zia quickly realized that the pale patches of furless skin that marked him as a deformed, motherless demon—a Karami—did not burn. When the acid struck them, it simply rolled off without harming him.

For this reason, it took Zia only a few seconds brush himself clean of the caustic liquid. Regardless, he was just barely quick enough to jump down from the tree, roll to his feet, and throw a spear that kept the spider from swooping down on Dhani.

His aim had been true and the muscles in his arm had launched the sharpened stick with the force of a cannon, and for that reason Zia's spear struck the vicious arachnid directly in its mouth and stuck there, buried several feet into the monster's flesh.

That bought him and the rest of the group time—perfect. Time was precisely what they needed.

* * *

><p>Some corner of Tork's mind noted that although it was unlikely that Dhani would be anything but a liability for the duration of the fight, the situation was far from unsalvageable. Though his chest and his arms and his legs burned, he was not badly injured and no one else on the ground seemed to be either. Instinctively, he found himself ensuring with extra certainty that his brother, Kyr, was alright—but there was no reason to worry. The younger Na'vi had had the good fortune of having been half-hidden when their enemy had flooded the entire area with enough acid to perhaps permanently render the soil there infertile and ashen.<p>

Tork found himself facing the spider with a very ugly expression on his face. He had heard of things like this before—no one in the Omaticaya clan had ever seen such a beast, of course, but tales had reached their ears from the mouths of travelers and visitors from other Na'vi clans. Such beasts as these were neither supernatural nor ethereal.

And that meant that this one could be killed.

Still, Tork had to wonder whether or not it was wise to fight. Although their foe didn't seem to be overly agile—now, it was circling around him and his subordinates in a malevolent sort of ambling shuffle—it was powerful, and shockingly fast. Worse yet, Tork couldn't think of any obvious ways by which to kill or incapacitate the arachnid quickly, before more of the Na'vi under his command were injured… or worse.

"Spread out!" Tork called, and immediately, his fellows began to do so. Zia—where was Zia? Tork couldn't see him immediately, and after trying for another second, he simply gave up and spared a moment to hope that Eywa had seen fit to allow the spirit of one of her less fortunate children to take its place with the others in death.

He then took Dhani by the midsection and roughly shoved him into the protected space beneath a nearby tree's overlarge roots. He was out of the fight well and completely, now, but at least he wouldn't follow Zia's unfortunate path. Not unless—

The thought struck Tork a moment before it came to pass. He had been stupid—what good was hiding Dhani under a tree when their foe could shatter trees like so many toothpicks? Tork damned himself and then threw himself in a long, low dive, just as the spider raced forward, and, with hateful intent, bashed through the space he had just occupied, obliterating what had just served as Dhani's cover.

And that left the wounded Na'vi unprotected. Still blind, he was defenseless and could do no more than to lift a four fingered hand to defend himself from fangs that would skewer him through and through.

It was when the spider went to bite down on Dhani that Zia leaped onto its back and drove his spear into the great belly of the beast. Before the terrible creature could react, he purposefully twisted his spear to the side to widen the wound created by his weapon and gouge out some of the beast's flesh. It was doubtlessly an effective attack, because it caused the spider to shriek and then violently throw itself to the side, rolling to get Zia off of it.

And he did get off of it. He jumped off and managed to land on his feet, sans his spear. It had remained stuck inside of the spider, until the spider had rolled.

When that had happened, it had pushed the spear deeper into its flesh. Too deep to be removed. It was a painful, terrible wound, but not one that would kill the beast quickly…

…So then why was Zia standing up, calmly, like he had nothing to worry about? And why was the spider no longer circling the Na'vi in the aggressive manner that it used to keep them on their toes, but in an increasingly slow, lethargic manner?

Tork observed the beast slowly collapse not ten seconds after Zia had speared it. The way it had died… he had seen it before, a thousand times, and he knew exactly what caused it.

That was why his hand was on his knife when he looked to Zia, still standing there as if nothing in the world was wrong.

"You poisoned your spear," Tork said. It was not a question. But Zia answered like it was.

"Yes," the tall Na'vi said flatly. He turned toward Tork, slowly, wiped some sweat out of the pale upper portion of his face, and said no more.

"That's one of our biggest taboos," Zam said, from several yards away. He, too had his hand on his knife and he, too, was staring at Zia in the cold, baleful way one might stare at a military threat or a blasphemer.

And then, from the hole in the ground that had just barely saved his life, Dhani spoke up.

"But our biggest taboo is to die needlessly," he said. He slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes hard, before blinking and managing to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds. "And Zia prevented me from dying needlessly."

* * *

><p>(There will be less action and some more character and plot development in the next chapter. I will also introduce another major "player" in this fanfiction.<p>

Anyway, I have exams for the next several weeks, but after that, I may have more time to write.)


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